"Last Things First"

A Common Emotion

Grief is something inevitable in life, yet it can be challenging to overcome. Or maybe overcome is not the right word. Someone once said:

“Grief never ends. But it changes. It’s a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith. It is the price of love.”

Jesus knew about grief because he loved. In this case, he grieved over the loss of a friend. The shortest verse in the Bible is simply: “Jesus wept.” And it is chronicled in John 11, where we see Jesus’ emotion at losing his good friend Lazarus.

About the only thing that could immediately reverse the grief of this family is if Lazarus could be raised from the dead. But that seems unlikely. But Jesus is on the scene and He has proven to do mighty deeds before.

Lazarus was a man that was a close friend of Jesus’ and was the brother of Mary and Martha.

Mary is the one who anointed Jesus with ointment and wiped His feet with her hair. This family is special to Jesus. Mary was the one who sat at the Lord’s feet, a sign of a disciple-Rabbi relationship. This, while Martha was busy cooking dinner and becoming impatient in Luke 10. Jesus told Martha: “Mary has chosen the better and it will not be taken from her.”

So Jesus has been in their home and they were on a first name basis. 11:5 tells us that Jesus loved this family.

Jesus is informed of Lazarus’ illness. He also knows that his condition is for the purpose of God’s glory.

The occasion of Lazarus’ death and resurrection from the dead figures to be a powerful time for Jesus to teach Martha about the resurrection of the body and everlasting life, the final two concepts found in the Apostles’ Creed. So it is to this subject that we track Jesus in John’s gospel, chapter 11.

Next, there is a strange turn of events. In John 11:6, the unexpected takes place. Jesus stays a few days longer. One would assume that Jesus would run to Lazarus in hopes to save him before he breathed his last. But as a preacher said, “God loves the impossible.” God would be greater glorified in raising Lazarus from a four-day death stink, than to raise him from a bed. And Jesus knows this, as we read in John 11:11 “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” And when the disciples questioned his statement, verse 14 reads: “Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus has died,’”

Jesus Finally Shows Up.

In 11:8, Jesus is also contending with places of controversy. Judea has become a place of controversy. His life was threatened there.

Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days. He’s gone. From a human perspective, the undertaker has been called. The body prepared. The funeral has taken place. Jews did not embalm, my understanding. It’s a done deal.

Martha goes to meet Jesus. From the story in Luke 10, we know that Martha could be described as impulsive, impatient, maybe emotional. She was given over to detail and easily overwhelmed.

She says in 11:21: “If you would have been here, my brother would not have died.” This is a statement of regret, but also a statement of faith. They had seen Jesus heal others.

She sent a messenger, but it just did not work out for Jesus to arrive sooner. Why? Because Jesus delayed on purpose! For God’s glory! But she is only seeing it through material eyes.

In verse 23 Jesus answers her: “He will rise again.” Martha’s response is: “I know he will rise again at the resurrection at the last day.” How did she know that her brother would rise again at the last day?

Belief in the resurrection was not novel among Jews. A strategic verse in the Old Testament that speaks of the resurrection is Job 19:25-26:

“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God… .”

In Matthew 17: On the Mount of Transfiguration, the disciples saw and recognized Moses and Elijah, so much that Peter wanted to build an alter to each.

Peter shows us that it is easy to miss the forest for the trees.

The resurrection is an event, but also a person!

Jesus made similar statements of His resurrection power. For instance, in John 6:39: “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.”

Or in John 6:44-45: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—“

And finally, John 6:50-51: “This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

And then in John 8:51-58

Jesus said: Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”

And the most provocative statement is found in verse 56:

“Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” 57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

Almost to prove that Lazarus is not just sleeping or that he has a physical ailment that just needs healing, we are reminded that Lazarus’ body has been in the tomb for four days. John 11:39, King James version says: “…he stinketh!”

In verse 43 Jesus calls to His friend: “Lazarus, Come forth!” With His word, Jesus brings about life!

Here, Jesus is truly displaying His divinity. He is speaking much like God did in the book of Genesis when God said: “Let there be light.” And there was light.

So the New Testament is true when it sees Christ for who He truly was/is.

And it is Jesus who offers...

Forgiveness and Reconciliation are great blessings through Christ.

Hebrews 9:22, explaining the necessity of the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament, states:

“Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”

There is a place that forgiveness of sins has in the relationship of the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Forgiveness of sins is core to the gospel and relates to what Jesus accomplished on the cross. It is from the forgiveness of sins that there is resurrection and eternal life.

Alister McGrath states: “This section tells of what Jesus achieved on the cross. In this terse phrase we are to find summarized the full richness of the New Testament understanding of the work of Jesus Christ. Taken together, these biblical concepts of the achievement of Jesus Christ aim to explain what was going on between God, Christ and sinful humanity in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.” (McGrath, I Believe, 98).

Forgiveness also involves the remission of a debt. It gives birth to reconciliation. As McGrath states: “Forgiveness is what is necessary for a personal relationship to be restored. Paul speaks of such reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5:19

2 Corinthians 5:19 ESV

19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

This is in deep contrast to what God had said to Judah in Isaiah 59:2.

Isaiah 59:2 ESV

2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

Whereas sin by itself, creates distance betwen us and God, it was the Lord who reached out to us in the cross and offered reconciliation through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ.

This reconciliation was completely initiated by Jesus through His death and resurrection. Paul stated in

Romans 5:8 ESV

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

From this reconciliation, new life in/with Jesus also offers:

Resurrection of the body and the life everlasting are birthed from the forgiveness of sins.

As stated before, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting are children of the forgiveness Christians enjoy. McGrath states:

“Faith brings about a change in our status before God, incorporating us into the family of God, despite the fact that we do not share the same divine origins as Christ.” (McGrath, I Believe, 103).

Furthermore, when the Bible speaks of eternal life, it is much more than just existing forever. Rather, it means life in all its fullness. Jesus said in John 10:10

John 10:10 ESV

10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

McGrath states: “We are not being offered an endless extension of our biological existence but rather a transformation of that existence. Eternal life means that our present relationship with God is not destroyed or thwarted by death, but is continued and deepened by it.” (McGrath, 104).

The first two Scottish missionaries sent to the New Hebrides Islands were killed and eaten by cannibals on the day they arrived. After that it proved difficult to find missionary volunteers. But even when John G. Paton agreed to go, well-meaning people in the church tried to dissuade him.

One elderly man warned that he would be eaten by cannibals. Paton replied, “I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honouring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.” After fifteen years of fruitful ministry, almost everyone on the island of Aniwa where Paton ministered was converted.

The opposite of the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting is the resurrection unto damnation and eternity without God.

And so we confess in the creed that we believe “…in the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.”

Our Best Days Are Yet to Come

A bright young girl of fifteen was suddenly cast upon a bed of suffering, completely paralyzed on one side and nearly blind. She heard the family doctor say to her parents as they stood by the bedside: “She has seen her best days, poor child!”

“No, doctor,” she exclaimed, “my best days are yet to come, when I shall see the King in His beauty.”

That is our hope. We shall not sink into annihilation. Christ rose from the dead to give us a pledge of our own rising. The resurrection is the great antidote for fear of death. Nothing else can take its place. Riches, genius, worldly pleasures or pursuits, none can bring us consolation in the dying hour.